The city’s nepotism policy over the years has kept Columbus Fire and Rescue from hiring or keeping personnel. Chief Duane Hughes still remembers many of them by name.
Whether they couldn’t be hired because they were related to an active firefighter or they had to resign because they married into the family of another firefighter, Hughes typed out seven instances where CFR missed out on otherwise qualified personnel to present to Columbus City Council on Wednesday evening.
For a department constantly struggling to meet and maintain its target of 65 employees — currently standing five short of that mark — those losses hurt, he said.
“It has prevented sons from coming to the department,” Hughes said. “We have had individuals that have had to retire early so that relatives would be able to come and work for the department. That has happened quite often. … We are already experiencing a bottleneck on recruitment. This is another one. I know five individuals that have gone to nearby departments because they could not work here due to that nepotism policy.”
Hughes kept the list in his pocket Wednesday, with the council instead unanimously easing the nepotism policy on city departments to match it with the less strict state policy without much fanfare. The decision came at the request of Hughes, Police Chief Joseph Daughtry and Public Works Director Casey Bush.
The former city policy prohibited anyone with at least a third degree of kinship from working in the same department. This includes children, grandchildren, cousins and nieces and nephews.
The state policy only prevents elected or appointed officials from hiring relations of at least the third degree to work as a clerk, stenographer, deputy, assistant and officer. Otherwise, it simply states an employee cannot be directly supervised by a relative.
“What (the city’s policy) tried to do was combine the ethics in government law with the nepotism law and make it into a policy that applied to all employees, as opposed to only elected officials,” City Attorney Jeff Turnage said. “It prohibited working in the same department if related to the third degree of kinship. … That apparently created some difficulty in recruitment and so that was the thinking behind (changing) it. We did substitute the state’s nepotism law in the handbook, which is much more limited.”
Daughtry said this will immediately pay dividends for the police department.
“I have a captain here, over (investigations), his son wants to come work for the police department,” Daughtry said. “He couldn’t work for CID because his dad is the immediate supervisor. But he could work in the patrol division or another division.”
Daughtry said the change is not a way to lighten standards. Rather it expands the applicant pool for each department.
“I need it to be known that we are not reducing our qualifications,” Daughtry told The Dispatch. “We are not lowering our standards. These family members still have to meet the minimum requirements. If there is a testing procedure, they still have to pass the test. It doesn’t matter that your family member works here, you don’t get a pass just because (of that).”
CPD currently has 41 active officers of its target 55.
Mayor Keith Gaskin addressed the decision during a Thursday morning press conference, noting it was the council’s desire to help the departments in any way possible.
“It is very difficult to recruit into those areas, since about 2018,” Gaskin said. “ … There was one time when there were openings in the fire department or police department, you would have 100 applicants. Now we are taking five or six. It is a very difficult time to recruit into those areas for various different reasons. … We are trying to do everything we can to help them be more successful in the recruiting process.”
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